Iconic Images Of Space Taken From The Ground

Photographer Edgar Martins' book, The Rehearsal of Space and the Poetic Impossibility to Manage the Infinite, is a must-have for space enthusiasts. But for those without the hard copy, the European Space Agency has released a series of amazing images from it, some of them has not published online previously. Take a look at them here.

Edgar Martins' clean, no-frills photos — taken with analogue, wide film cameras — document the specialised installations and equipment needed to prepare for space missions and recreate orbital conditions down on Earth. A comprehensive photographic survey of the European Space Agency's various facilities, the results are an amazing set of photographs straight from the future, but living with us. Here are some of our favourites.

Assembly of the Near InfraRed Spectrograph (NIRSpec) instrument, one of four instruments on the ESA-NASA James Webb Space Telescope (Airbus Defence and Space, Ottobrunn ISO Class 5 Integration Facility, Germany)

Mockup of Node 2 or Harmony (the 'utility module' of the International Space Station) in the Erasmus high bay (ESA-ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands)

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